Libya and the Left: Benghazi and After

Guest post by Michael Bauble, expert on left wing thought

In March 2011, a massacre was averted in Libya - not an ordinary massacre, mind you, but a really nasty one, with an entire city being smashed and pounded to rubble with heavy weaponry and arbitrary execution of civilians and captured fighters by Gaddafi's thugs.

The Nato-led attack on Libya saved Benghazi from this fate, by smashing and pounding a different Libyan city to rubble with heavy weaponry and with arbitrary execution of civilians and captured fighters by rebel thugs instead.

This totally awesome outcome sent a clear message to other authoritarian governments - if you're going to intentionally rub out thousands of civilians in pursuit of political goals, don't start destroying heavily-populated urban areas around the ears of residents or empowering gangs of militia to crack down violently on ethnic minorities.

At least, not without first making sure that you ask the UN for a mandate to "protect civilians".

By authorising Nato to take action to "protect civilians" then looking on in horror as Nato helped to protect tens of thousands of Libyans to death, the UN recovered some of the legitimacy it previously lost for not allowing western nations to blow up whatever they like, whenever they like, for whatever reasons they like.

The Arab League would later protest that Nato air strikes exceeded the resolution's mandate, but nobody cares what a bunch of jumped-up sheikhs think about anything. If they were stupid enough to hand Nato a blank cheque for maximal violence, they should at least have had the decency to keep quiet, once Nato started blowing shit up.

In the United States, Dennis Kucinich pointed out that the president of the United States doesn't have the authority to just blow up whatever shit he likes, whenever he likes, for whatever reasons he likes. It's almost too easy to trot out the hoary old allegation that Dennis Kucinich was objectively pro-Gaddafi, so here goes...

Dennis Kucinich was objectively pro-Gaddafi, and also wants to give Gaddafi a big kiss on the lips and be his boyfriend and hold hands with him like a girl.

It was possible to oppose American intervention in Libya for legitimate reasons. One could point out that Nato traded the total destruction of one city for the destruction of another and empowered one gang of cold-blooded killers at the expense of another, but nobody should actually point this out.

If we're going to criticise the war, we should do it with some weak-ass objections that even the most cretinous Sensible Liberal can easily swat, and definitely not with substantive criticisms that don't have any easy answers.

From the outset, the American left adopted very traitorous and pro-tyranny positions, asking why we were so very upset about vicious crackdowns in Libya but were entirely content to watch other countries that we like killing the fuck out of their citizens without saying a word.

This is a difficult question to answer without honestly reassessing some very uncomfortable questions, so let's just say that it's all, like, complicated man; imply that anyone asking it is basically evil and then leave it at that.

After all, if an antiwar movement can't get behind an opportunistic assassination/regime change wheeze in which the side we're supporting is murdering civilians because of the colour of their skin, then it probably can't get behind any mad schemes of exemplary violence, and that's no fun for anyone, is it?

Instead of cheering for war, the left succumbed to that old chestnut Obama Derangement Syndrome - that crazed, hard-leftist belief that the President shouldn't export extreme violence to any nation on Earth, just because it seems like a good idea to him.

I am not insisting that support for Nato military action in Libya should have been a litmus test issue for the left.

I am simply saying that any leftist who didn't support it is a hideous, pro-Gaddafi cock-wrangler who should probably get out of my sight before I flip out, start bellowing cursewords and insults at the top of my voice and throwing tables around the room like the Incredible Hulk on a Jagermeister binge.

All we need to know on the left is that the US is involved in killing tens of thousands of people all over the Middle East and Africa for reasons that range from dubious to insane, and then we automatically know that the action is wrong.

For the left, knee-jerk opposition to America's retarded, ultraviolent and counter-productive military adventures should be opposed because they are American, and certainly not because we object to America's a track record of wiping out tens of thousands of people for no sane reason.

Ten years ago, Michael Walzer asked if there could be a "Decent Left". After ten years of constant mockery, it's clear that the time has come to put a new shade of lipstick on the Decent pig. Clearly, the reason why the Decent Left failed to troll everyone into buying their own dishonest, hacktacular politics is because we gave ourselves a silly name, and certainly not because we are dishonest and hacktacular.

I suggest the "Internationalist Left", by which I mean the lockstep-support-for-whatever-crazy-schemes-for-revolutionary-violence-the-American-government-fancies-left, although it's probably better if we pretend that it really means something about freedom from tyranny and humanitarianism. After all, it worked so very well the last time.

After Benghazi, the left has a difficult question to answer - Do you support the use of extreme violence in highly dangerous and unpredictable situations by politicians who openly lie to their citizens, or do you want to give Colonel Gaddafi's corpse a big cuddle like a girl?

Eh? EH?

Party Issues Artistic Purge List 2010

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GLORIOUS NEWS COMRADES STOP PARTY ISSUES UPDATED PURGE LIST TREACHEROUS ARTISTIC BADTHINKERS STOP ALL PARTY MEMBERS REQUIRED TO EXPUNGE FOLLOWING TRAITOROUS MUSICAL RECORDINGS FROM PERSONAL COLLECTIONS STOP

DISSENT WILL BE MET WITH IMMEDIATE CONDEMNATION AND EXPULSION STOP

PARTY MEMBERS WILL IMMEDIATELY DIVEST SELVES OF SEDITIOUS ARTISTIC MATERIALS OF PRIMAL SCREAM STOP EXTREME RISK OF IDEOLOGICAL INFECTION/CONTAMINATION VIA CHILDISH POLITICAL ANTICS OF PARTY ENEMY GILLESPIE STOP

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Administrative Notes - Resonance FM Interview

Your less-than-humble host interviewed here, on the rise and fall of Decency in the realm of foreign policy and the General Election. I also do children's parties, on request.

Arise, Ye Warriors Of Decency!

Congratulations to all Encyclopedia readers, as news reaches Muscular Manor that the Israeli Knesset has embarked on a new crackdown on human rights NGOs. The latest proposals would allow the Israeli government to close down any NGO on entirely spurious and heavily fictionalised allegations of treachery.

Coming so soon after the previous crackdown's restrictions on the movement of human rights NGOs' employees, this fresh move amounts to an entirely deliberate and Dalek-esque attempt to exterminate the concept of "oversight" under the hilarious pretence that everyone in the entire universe is a racist psychopath hell-bent on Israel's destruction.

In short, it appears that we may be on the cusp of achieving the Decent dream of a world in which the IDF will be able to imprison and/or kill the fuck out of whoever it likes, whenever it likes, without having to answer a lot of impertinent questions.

None of this could've been achieved without your contribution, dear reader, for polls now reveal that...

More than half of Jewish Israelis think human rights organizations that expose immoral behavior by Israel should not be allowed to operate freely, and think there is too much freedom of expression here, a recent survey found. (Haaretz)

To be clear - the Israeli people did not wake up one morning suddenly filled with the deranged belief that human rights NGOs are jammed to the hoop with pro-terrorist, genocidal Nazis who need to be jailed. It took a long, monomaniacal and completely insane campaign of misinformation, fraudulent non-scandals and outright propaganda to reach the point where these crackdowns would be possible.

So arise, ye warriors of Decency! Whether you wholeheartedly joined in the wingnutty circle-jerk over Amnesty International and the awful terrorists or merely pretended to be terrified that Human Rights Watch was employing actual, jackbooted Nazi stormtroopers, it is your efforts that have led to this glorious outcome.

Candidly, our furious bullshit campaigns against NGOs have been so obviously premised on utter bad faith and tissue-thin innuendo that it has taken years of hard work to reach the point where the Israeli government can crush anyone and everyone who tries to draw attention to its astonishingly bad behaviour.

Our record of trumping up these hysterically dishonest and see-through allegations into a massive media bullshit explosion of blatantly fake concern about non-existent pro-Jihadism is second to none, and has played an important role in creating this situation.

So give yourselves a pat on the back, muscular liberals! You yourself may not literally have shot a Palestinian woman in the face with total impunity from scrutiny or accountability, but it's thanks in no small part to you that all of tomorrow's horrific Israeli human rights violations will take place in a media and judicial vaccuum.

Well done, to each and every one of you.

The Court of Decency vs. Amnesty International

Interim Report

(With the Decent Jihad on Amnesty International well underway, the Court of Decency has issued its interim findings on the latest witchhunt against a human rights organisation...)

1. Amnesty International is in partnership with and promoting CagePrisoners

Status: UNDETERMINED.

Amnesty vehemently deny any official relationship at all with CagePrisoners, a foolish gambit given we all know that they are literally in cahoots with the Taliban and praying for the victory of fundamentalist Islam.

2. The head of Amnesty Asia has condemned the organisation

Status: UNDETERMINED.

Sam Zafiri, Amnesty's Asia Pacific director, was reported by the Times journalist who first broke the BullshitGate story to have called upon Amnesty to "admit it had made a mistake" by allowing Moazzam Begg to speak. Zafiri has since said he was misquoted, which means he must surely have called upon Amnesty's UK directors to commit suicide by disembowelling themselves instead.

3. Amnesty is giving Begg a platform to espouse his nutty beliefs.

Status: FALSE.

Begg has only ever spoken about the secret black prison network in which he was held, and into which an unknown number of innocent and guilty individuals have vanished, many of whom have been tortured for false confessions or murdered. Amnesty has no place drawing attention to the legitimate torture and national security operations of western democracies, and referring to the US black prison network is surely just as bad as Amnesty calling for Jihad on western democracy itself.

4. Amnesty is soft on Islamists in general and the Taliban in particular.

Status: FALSE.

Amnesty's latest work on the Taliban is available here and is, admittedly, somewhat short on kisses and hugs and long on documenting human rights violations. Mind, you'll notice they Condemn the Taliban, but the question is, do they Denounce them? Do they Castigate and Excoriate them?

5. Gita Saghal was suspended for objecting to Amnesty's promotion of Begg.

Status: FALSE.

The sequence of events leading to Saghal's suspension is clear. She took part in an internal debate at Amnesty on their decision to allow Begg to speak, which she lost. Rather than resign or accept Amnesty's decision, she took her complaint to News International. Thus, Saghal was suspended for attacking the organisation in the Murdoch press, which is almost exactly the same as being suspended for her moral rectitude.

6. As a whistleblower, Saghal should be protected from victimisation.

Status: FALSE.

All of the relevant information was already in the press before Saghal spoke to the press, thus she is not a whistleblower. Nor is she being victimised, since every organisation on Earth would suspend an employee in this situation.

The Court finds that Amnesty should, however, hold itself to far higher standards than every other organisation on Earth and allow its employees to denounce it in the national press. After all, we all remember how it was totally fine when Katherine Gun leaked news that the United States had been bugging UN delegations in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, to pick a random example.

Conclusion

On the above evidence, the Court Of Decency has no choice but to find Amnesty International hideously guilty of all charges. The fiends.

Amnesty International is hereby sentenced to twenty years of re-education by Oliver Kamm in respecting the human rights of all individuals not currently being bombed, shot, tortured or extrajudicially detained by the armed forces of the United States of America, Great Britain or Israel.

The Court also commends the following agents for building this airtight and in no way misleading case against Amnesty: Denis MacShane MP; Christopher Hitchens; Harry's Place; David Aaronovitch; Martin Bright; Nick Cohen; Norman Geras; The Times; Melanie Philips and others.

Without your sterling efforts comrades, this patchwork of misleading claims, bald deceptions and outright hysterical lies would never have reached the international press.

(Cheers are due to Pickled Politics)

You Are The Decent Ref - Human Rights NGO Edition

1) A Humanitarian NGO that does fine work exposing the crimes and atrocities of dictatorships worldwide has recently begun to criticise the Departures From Universal Principles of nations that are uncritically supported by the Decent Left.

You then discover that a hideous gaggle of despicable right-wing lunatic bastards have unearthed proof that a military analyst who works for the NGO collects World War II memorabilia, including German army issue kit and insignia, and are engaged in a wingnut circlejerk of the utmost ferocity aimed at damaging the NGO as badly as possible.

What do you do?

a) Nothing. Jesus, a military analyst who's also a massive World War II geek with a fetish for uniforms? What next, a football fan who likes lager and pies?

b) The NGO risks harm to its reputation, thus harming its ability to publicise human rights violations by tyrants and totalitarians. Type up a short blog post expressing your concern and calling upon the NGO to investigate and, if necessary, discipline or fire the analyst in question.

c) Publish post after post after post furiously denouncing the NGO, feigning concern for its reputation and good works while actually striving to inflict as much damage upon it as possible, while inviting a massive crowd of baying right wing fuckheads to defecate liberally over the NGO by painting it as a malign conspiracy of Jew-hating, anti-western Nazi bastards?


2) A Humanitarian NGO that does fine work exposing the crimes and atrocities of dictatorships worldwide has recently begun to criticise the Departures From Universal Principles of nations that are uncritically supported by the Decent Left.

You then discover that the NGO is hosting public appearances by a former inmate of a massive American black prison network with a long record of disappearances, arbitrary detention, torture and murder; the former inmate, however, holds deranged and unpleasant Islamist views.

What do you do?

a) Nothing. Jesus, the whole point of human rights is that they're universal. It's entirely obvious that states will crack down on extremists and nutters as much as they will on peaceful democratic dissidents, and any human rights org worth its salt will take both cases equally seriously. Plus, what the fuck? Torture and black prisons?

b) The NGO risks harm to its reputation, thus harming its ability to publicise human rights violations by tyrants and totalitarians. Type up a short blog post expressing your concern and calling upon the NGO to investigate and, if necessary, discipline or fire anyone found to have taken actions that are in conflict with the organisation's founding principles.

c) Publish post after post after post furiously denouncing the NGO while feigning concern for its reputation and good works and actually striving to inflict as much damage upon it as possible, while inviting a massive crowd of baying right wing fuckheads to defecate liberally over the NGO by painting it as a Jew-hating, Jihadist-fellating anti-western conspiracy and, further, using the issue as a stick to beat your political enemies and launching a fucking Facebook campaign?

3) A large number of Humanitarian NGOs that do fine work exposing the crimes and atrocities of dictatorships worldwide have recently begun to criticise the Departures From Universal Principles of nations that are uncritically supported by the Decent Left.

You then discover absolutely any scrap of pissweak propagandistic horseshit that may damage the NGO and discredit their attempts to hold Democrats to minimum international humanitarian standards by implying that war, torture and murder may not be entertaining and laudible activities.

What do you do?

a) Nothing. Jesus, you may not agree with everything that NGOs do and may strongly disagree with some of it, but you appreciate that launching a series of vindictive and spiteful hate campaigns against the world's leading humanitarian organisations would be counterproductive and wrong-headed.

b) The NGO risks harm to lunatic, bloodthirsty and disastrous military misadventures unconditionally supported by the Decent Left, thus harming western nations' ability to launch insane and murderous bombing campaigns against heavily populated urban areas and to operate a secret network of black prisons. Type up a short blog post expressing your concern and calling upon the NGO to consider whether war, surgical strikes, arbitrary detention, torture, murder and disappearances are really worth getting all steamed up about, in the midst of a Global War on Terror.

c) Immediately seize upon any old bullshit that damages the NGO in question by pretending that the International Red Cross may have collaborated with terrorists to bomb their own ambulance, using a risible pack of wingnut lies published by a hideous shower of evil right wing bastards as evidence; Reprint a pack of dubious What If? bollocks from a well-known Republican cretin implying that Human Rights Watch conspires with the Saudi regime to falsely attack Israel; Reprint a mad Israeli wingnut's attempts to hurl huge handfuls of shit at HRW by accusing one of its employees of loving terrorists and terrorism; Instantly shit your pants in terror when an Amnesty official compares the Americans' secret torture, murder and arbitrary detention network of black prisons the Gulag; Issue a full-throated defence of international disappearance and arbitrary detention or a masturbatory Real-Men-Ain't-Afraid-Of-Torturin'-a-Bad-'Un display of belligerent machismo; call for "morally serious" people to have a debate on torture, an issue which deserves careful consideration, and generally make it clear that opposition to western human rights violations is the preserve of ivory tower-dwellling pro-Islamists who pray for the destruction of western civilisation?

Answers

Mostly a)

If you like Jihadistan so much, why don't you fuck off and live there, you relativist, genocidal Osama Bin Liberal bastard?

Mostly b)

There's a time and place for level-headed, rational discussion, and it's never and somewhere else.

Mostly c)

Congratulations - you are a morally serious, level-headed Decent. Our deranged plan to suicide bomb every left-wing organisation and institution on the face of the planet into submission, in the insane hope that a new, more politically acceptable network of human rights organisations will automatically spring into existence on the day of the Rapture, proceeds apace. Onwards to an ill-defined and probably fantastical victory, comrades!

Arrogance

Despicable Self-Righteousness

1. Disgusting anti-war groupthink of sniffy left wingers, contending that there were no good reasons for supporting an insane, half-arsed, ill-defined and transparently doomed militaristic clusterfuck led by morons with support from the undead cast of Iran/Contra: The Musical.

2. The dogmatic certainty that a war that resulted in horrifyingly brutal civil strife and mass slaughter, sectarian partition, the rocket-propelled national decline of the invaders, the invaded nation and all of their allies in the region, plus the vast empowerment of reactionaries and lunatics, was somehow a bad idea.

By hewing to the bien-pensant party line, liberals on the internet have perpetrated possibly the most tragic injustice of the 21st century in implying that an elderly academic's opinions are cretinous, deluded and cracked, leaving him feeling somewhat slighted.

Source: "Why can't those who opposed the war admit that I cheerled this easily-avoidable, murderous catastrophe in good faith?", Normblog: Extract from page 388, Chapter Seven, Book Nine of the Professor's thirty two-volume epic poem "Just Because It Was a Disaster Doesn't Mean I Was Wrong, You Snotty Liberal Bastards".

Emboldened

The Wages of Wussiness

1. Superhuman status acquired by terrorists if and when citizens refuse to endorse insane government policy (x).

"We must remember that we are at war and that, if we fail in our responsibility to dispense with the judicial system/look up your arse with this enormous camera/bomb Hong Kong to smithereens, our enemies will be emboldened".

2. Supervillain status that would have been acquired by Saddam Hussein if Parliament had refused to endorse the liberation of Iraq.

"Having put in place the necessary military forces to remove Saddam Hussein, he would have been emboldened if we had then refused to remove him".

"With respect Mr. Blair, I do not recall a frenzied public clamour for the deployment of 200,000 British and American soldiers to Iraq's borders. For you to then blackmail the country into precipitate military action because of a situation that you have yourself consciously created seems rather -"

"Yes, indeed. He would've been entirely emboldened, as would have been his sons."

3. Following the whipping out of the Prime Ministerial penis in Parliament, the argument that those opposed to immediate and copious public urination across the front and back benches would, intentionally or otherwise, like to hold hands with fascists and kiss them on the lips and everything.

4. Terroristic state of depravity somewhat worse than underlined and significantly worse than italicised.

The White House Tapes

(Rush transcript - Oval Office recorder 1.4 - start time 14.29, 1/23/10)


RAHM EMMANUEL: You wanted to see me, Mr. President?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Yes, Rahm. Take a seat. We may have... (Oratically brilliant Presidential pause) ...a rather significant problem.

EMMANUEL: Yes sir. Can I take it you're referring to the column in today's London Observer?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: It's a Goddamn disaster, Rahm! Nick Cohen has sunk this administration! Why, with his incredibily accurate skewering of our moral cowardice and insane urge to assist the Chinese with their inhuman oppression of Tibet, he's utterly crushed my presidency. (Panic-stricken relativist sobs).

EMMANUEL: It does rather look that way, sir. Have you considered how we're going to explain this to the Bien-Pensant Liberal Leftists, Whose Tendency To Pay Lip Service To Human Rights Is So Common In Our Times?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Never mind them. What are we going to say to the Superficially-Leftish So-Called Progressives Who Believe That Democracy Is An Imperialist Ideology? I mean, this Cohen guy is telling his readers that I didn't mention women's rights in my Cairo speech!

EMMANUEL: Well, we checked that sir, and it appears that you dedicated a whole section of your Cairo speech to women's rights. It looks rather like Cohen may have brutally fucked the dog on that one, since your remarks are on page seven of the text Cohen links to. We don't know whether that's part of his fiendish scheme to undermine you, or possibly that he decides what's going into his columns before he researches them, like a second-rate hack who can't be fucked to check his sources.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Obviously it's the former, Rahm. This guy is too smart to be just some second-rate hack who can't be fucked to check his sources. I mean... (Charismatic yet some how effete and elitist flourish) ...My God, he's put the Henry Jackson Society on my case!

EMMANUEL: There's no disguising it sir - your presidency can't survive a bad write-up from a tiny clique of pointy-headed, no-dick academic ideologues prattling about war and swooning over belligerent-sounding bullshit.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: That's the whole point! I knew I should've spent less time dealing with the catastrophic financial and military clusterfucks I inherited and much more time barking and woofing like a demented chihuahua. I mean, you remember what the Republicans did when the Russians invaded Georgia?

EMMANUEL: I sure do, sir - the Republicans all sat up on their hind legs and began yammering about how Putin was Hitler and how he'd better quit it right now, or else! Then the Russians took a huge, steaming dump on the White House lawn by smashing the Georgian military, then occupying South Ossetia and proclaiming it independent.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Exactly! Those fruity Republican losers might have achieved exactly bugger all and wound up looking like prize chumps, but they sounded tough, damn it! (Sneers at liberal values) ...And now this Cohen guy is telling the world that I cancelled our missile defence scheme to get into Putin's good books!

EMMANUEL: I guess when we told people we were cancelling missile defence because it was a ruinously expensive and totally unworkable pile of utter, useless bullshit designed entirely to enrich weapons contractors, Cohen just saw right through our story. I have to admit, he's good.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Too good. This stuff about how I failed to support the Iranian opposition in their hour of need... (Operatic flourish, twirl) ...Not only that, I referred to their country as The Islamic Republic of Iran, as if the ayatollahs owned it.

EMMANUEL: Yes. Why did you do that, sir?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: (Thumps desk in puny outburst of impotent rage that wouldn't frighten a Jihadist mouse) ...Because I've wilfully blinded myself to the urgent threat of Islamist fascism and fallen prey to the language of appeasement and easy moral equivalence, that's why! Don't you remember anything?

EMMANUEL: Of course, Mr. President, I forgot.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Cohen's right. If only I'd gone on television and thrown an epic tantrum, calling the mullahs bastards and telling the protesters we'd back them up with nuclear warheads, Iran might be an oasis of tranquility and democracy by now. (Shakes head, sneers at the oppressed) ...You know, I feel pretty relativist, ergo racist and disdainful of brown people's freedom, right now. I've got to do something to regain the initiative.

EMMANUEL: Might I suggest that you arrange a press conference and call Mahmoud Ahmadinejad something like Arseface McStalin? You could call him a Nazi and a totalitarian, then everything would work out fine.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: That's just for starters! (Suddenly engorged with masculine vigour and dictator-repelling moral certitude) ...I want you to order our ambassador in Beijing to construct a fifty-foot tall papier-mache human hand giving the finger on the roof, then have the staff stand around shouting Fuck you Chinese Commie arseholes! into megaphones.

EMMANUEL: Brilliant, sir. The Communist regime will fold instantly and the Chinese will surely elect a pro-western liberal democratic government within days. Anything else?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Send a photo of Hillary Clinton's sagging, pendulous ass to Kim Jong Il... And nuke Antarctica. It won't achieve anything, but it'll make us look tough and manly, and isn't that the important thing?

EMMANUEL: It certainly is, Mr. President.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Oh, and phone Hugo Chavez and tell him I think he's a fat, tedious cunt.

EMMANUEL: And what will that achieve, sir?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Absolutely nothing, Rahm! That's the whole point of empty, bellicose rhetoric and foolhardy gestures designed to impress cretins! (Testosterone explosion devastates Oval Office causing women to swoon, overcome by presidential machismo, as far away as El Salvador).

(Transcript ends)

Dementia

Mental Disorder Afflicting Everybody Else

Debilitating condition causing the vast majority of the planet's population to believe that certain epic foreign policy clusterfucks and horrific bloodbaths may have been the product of political skullduggery rather than simple ideological idiocy.

Distortionary psychological blinkers inexplicably leading to the conclusion that Tony Blair and Alistair Campbell may have packed their case for calamitous war with dubious assertions, questionable intelligence and cut 'n' pasted bullshit because they were dishonest rather than wildly irresponsible and cretinous.

Woeful condition chiefly afflicting those liberals who preferred to leave Saddam Hussein in power by not bombing Iraq to pieces with no plans for reconstruction, governance or withdrawal, rather than invading Iraq with their fingers crossed for luck and then blaming the ensuing catastrophe on the liberals.

Sources - I'm Just Begging To Be Fired Now by Nick Cohen and I Supported This Insane Plan With Good Intentions, You Liberal Bastards by Professor Norm.

FKATWOT

Audience-Pleasing Acronym

Hilarious, thigh-slapping response to every partially pugnacious Presidential pronouncement, a well-executed Formerly Known As The War On Terror! sets 'em rollin' and rockin' with ROFL as Decent funnybones are tickled and sides split.

Generally deployed after any statement from Barack Obama indicating that he favours attacking terrorists rather than fellating them, FKATWOT implies the following concepts...

1) That, contrary to Barack Obama's election pledges to continue occupying Afghanistan and to keep bombing terrorists and wedding parties, Chardonnay-sipping Hampstead Guardianistas and Bien Pensant Islingtonian Liberals had feverishly hoped that Barack Obama would instead abolish the armed forces of the United States and erect a golden temple to Osama Bin Laden on the former site of the World Trade Center, and that

2) Barack Obama has in fact continued to occupy Afghanistan and bomb terrorists and wedding parties.


Taken in conjunction, these twin concepts create a chucklesome comedy cocktail of bladder-bursting proportions, causing Decents to literally explode in a puff of hilarity.

Source: Obama said "violent extremists!" FKATWOT! LMAO! by Professor Norm.

The Souls of Secret Policemen

"No novelist with any talent just deals with political themes, and readers who scour their books for ideological clues have the souls of secret policemen". - Nick Cohen, December 2009

"...so consistent was the pro-Islamist party line in the BBC’s drama it seemed as if a politburo had taken control of the arts department". Nick Cohen, December 2007

See also here: Nick on the foul Islamofascistical subtext of Robin Hood; Nick on the foul appeasement of Spooks; Nick on the foul moral blindness of Die Hard 4.

Here: Nick on the foul, wilful blindness to Islamofascism of The Bourne Identity; Nick on the foul, disgusting unwillingness of James Bond to tackle Islamofascism; Nick on the foul appeasement of Spooks (again).

Previously: Mainstream Liberal Culture.

Inquiry

Beacon/Travesty of Justice

1. Enlightened group of Solomonic Solons gathered to pass impartial judgement upon the innocence and ironclad moral rectitude of the Prime Minister and to sentence fork-tongued reporters and mendacious public service broadcasters to hard labour in the grim Gulag of journalistic disgrace.

Unimpeachable tribunes of even-handed justice, investigating and rejecting out of hand grotesque litanies of false accusation against pure-hearted politicians in the spirit of non-partisan free inquiry, whose decision is final.

2. Despicable kangaroo court of politically-motivated liars, con men, mountebanks and bastards gathered to orchestrate the public lynching of the Prime Minister in an epic assault upon truth and justice.

A great troupe of cackling, pro-terror chimpanzees gathered to hurl great handfuls of faeces into the wide-eyed, trusting faces of pure-hearted politicians, unless their report absolves the Prime Minister of wrongdoing, in which case see 1.

The Week In Decency - Twitter

Chilcot Iraq inquiry to find Blair innocent! No laughing until you've read the postgraduate thesis they'll plagiarise to justify their findings.

Hooray! Benny Morris threatens Israel's neighbours with World War III, calls US President a pussy.

Hitchens - Evil people do evil things because they are evil. An intellectual titan - Norm agrees, by the way.

Law and order hawks - Pitbulls make excellent guard dogs if you're worried about being burgled by toddlers.

Swiss racists - disguise your bigotry by forbidding all religious people from putting minarets in their mosques, and not just Muslims. (Note on the text - this is rather like setting strict laws on what both men and women can do with their own vaginas).

Harry's Place - Encourage the French to commit more troops to our military clusterfucks by calling them cowardly wretches.

Celtic v Hapoel Tel Aviv - As a Hoops fan, I say no political protest at the game. There's no place at Parkhead for religion or politics.

Hook-handed extremist clerics - Improve your life expectancy by avoiding clocks, crocodiles and any clock/crocodile-related activities.

Peak Soviet forces in Afghanistan - 115,000 troops. 130,000 coalition troops will defo do the trick this time tho. Go Obama!

Would it be moral to clone Adolf Hitler, then immediately have him shot for war crimes? Note - if you answered "No," then you are a Nazi.

Actually, if I could clone anyone, it'd be Pablo Picasso, so that I could call him an asshole, just to infuriate the Modern Lovers.

When Seal wrote "Crazy," he clearly wasn't talking about CifWatch or he would've called it "Wonk-Wonk Fuckadoodle Bugshit". (No we're never gonna survive, unless...)

Daily diatribes on Decent developments here.

AsaJew

Insult

Bizarre ethnoreligious insult used by wackadoodle wingnuts to demean and disregard the opinions of non-wingnut members of the Jewish faith that this writer, for one, is not touching with a fucking bargepole.

The Hitchens Formula

Income-generating wheeze

Rhetorical cash cow guaranteeing regular payments of Decent Dole to newspaper columnists who have become too senile and incoherent to earn a living, as regularly paid by Slate, The Guardian, Standpoint and the Times.

Originally attributed to Comrade Hitchens, the Formula is expressed thusly...

Did (American action X) cause (atrocity Y)? No!

Rinse and repeat as needed. See also: Condemnit!

Democracy

Contradictory Plebiscitory and Representative Process

Electoral procedure whereby citizens vote for candidates ostentatiously supported by Decents.

Not to be confused with totalitarianism, whereby citizens vote for candidates ostentatiously Condemned by Decents.

Democracy in Action - A Quick Guide To National Elections

1. Formal procedure by which Iraqi democrats appoint Islamists with links to unsavoury terrorist groups as their official representatives and rulers.

The ultimate expression of the will of the Iraqi people, demonstrating their immense hunger for freedom.

Supported!

2. Formal procedure by which Palestinian fascists appoint Islamists from unsavoury terrorist groups as their official representatives and rulers.

The ultimate expression of the will of the Palestinian people, demonstrating their immense hunger for genocide.

Condemned!

3. Formal procedure by which a US-installed and supported former Unocal oil consultant and ex-CIA asset appoints himself as the Afghan people's official representative and ruler.

The ultimate expression of the will of Hamid Karzai, although of course not representative of the will of the government of the United States nor their intelligence services, who frown upon election-rigging in countries that they militarily occupy and over which they exercise de facto control.

Condemned!

4. Formal process by which Iranian democrats appoint the clerical fascist former prime minister of the Islamic Republic and right-hand man of Ayatollah Khomeini, and actually get Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as their official representative and ruler.

The ultimate expression of the will of the Iranian people, contingent upon the Iranian opposition remaining out of power. Should the opposition actually take power, they will instantly cease to be democrats and revert to being horrifying, totalitarian fascist monsters thirsting for war and genocide.

Supported! unless they actually win, at which point they will be immediately Condemned!

5. Formal process by which Venezuelan idiots vote for the terrifying socialist monster Hugo Chavez as their Supreme Dictator-For-Life.

The ultimate expression of the will of the people, demonstrating their immense thirst for a Thousand-Year Reich of bloody Bolivarian horror.

Condemned!

6. Formal process by which Lebanese democrats appoint whichever Armani-suited warlord or gangster shares their ethno-religious identity as their official representative and ruler.

The ultimate expression of the will of the Lebanese people, demonstrating their immense hatred for Hezbollah and warm, near-sexual affection for states that periodically invade, strafe and cluster bomb their country.

Supported!

7. Formal process by which Spanish pussies are intimidated into appointing anti-war appeasers of fascism as their official rulers and representatives.

The ultimate expression of the cowardice of the Spanish people, demonstrating their pitiful, wimpish inability to take a few terrorist bombings and bullshit government propaganda efforts without going all weak at the knees and bowing before fascists.

Condemned!

Note

Final analysis of the Afghan election is contingent upon the outcome of Hitchens vs. United Nations, currently being heard before the Court of Decency.

Case summary: Hitchens observes blatant electoral fraud perpetrated by a US-installed and supported former Unocal oil consultant and ex-CIA asset in an epic campaign of ballot stuffing, and concludes that said fraud is entirely the fault of the United Nations. Hitchens further commends the ultimately futile efforts of the Americans to prevent the theft of the election by the candidate that they have both financially and politically backed for decades.

Judgement pending; Full text of Hitchens' petition here.

Israel Lobby

Actually Existing Imaginary Political Tendency

1. Make-believe intergalactic clan of Hebraic space lizards plotting the domination of Earth through the deployment of satellite lazers, telepathic mind-control and insidious tentacle porn, beloved of black helicopter-fearing, Reptilian-sniffing internet 9/11 Truther mentals.

Despicable, ludicrous fictional conspiracy theory, referred to solely by racists.

2. Actually existing in reality Anglo-American political tendency entirely composed of headbanging right wing fruitcake fucknuts, loudly and openly demanding deranged foreign policy initiatives and military carnage from positions within some of the world's most highly respected universities, political forums and best-selling newspapers.

Entirely unremarkable group of individuals engaged in thoroughly commonplace and humdrum attempts to influence government policy and public opinion through the medium of the popular press and glorified cheese and wine parties, any reference to the existence of which is racist in the extreme.

Goldstone Condemnathon

Following the UN General Council vote to endorse the Goldstone Report, the Encyclopedia of Decency hereby condemns Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Benin, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, China, Comoros, Congo, Cuba, Cyprus, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Eritrea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libya, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Mongolia, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Qatar, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Switzerland, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Republic of Tanzania, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Viet Nam, Yemen, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Foul, genocidal racists directly supporting the terrorist assault on democracy itself. They should all be ashamed of themselves, especially Antigua and Barbuda. They're the worst racists of all.

You Don't Have To Be a Muslim To Be Furiously Denounced, But It Helps

It seems like The Encyclopedia of Decency is in trouble with the chardonnay-swilling, braying, hooray Henry bien-pensant community again. Brie-scoffing, pony-trotting posho elitist Penny Laurie posts these words about us at The Samosa...

The Encyclopedia of Decency has pursued what has been seen as a "witch hunt" against any Muslim or Muslim-ally who does not fit the site editors' strict definition of "moderation"; to whit, near non-involvement in politics.

Oh dear, that old failure to distinguish between two entirely different, obviously unconnected things again. Laurie's unfounded accusation that we engage in politically-motivated smear campaigns and ad hominem attacks on dissenters is exactly what we'd expect from a painfully right-on upper middle class permastudent with a great, throbbing boner for Islamist fascism.

Let's get this clear. The Encylopedia is - inter alia - a website to which those individuals who hold deranged, belligerent hardline right wing views on a wide variety of national and international issues are welcome to contribute, provided they are willing to coat their wingnutty babble in a thick layer of faux-lefty bullshit about anti-racism.

We're against baleful theocratic conspiracies against democracy that threaten to hold the scimitar of head-chopping Islamic law to the neck of the human race, and we pull no punches in writing snotty blog posts about those who are in favour of such set ups, no matter how Muslim they are.

In short - you don't have to be a Muslim to be repeatedly and vociferously denounced as a brutal threat to peace and freedom in a frenzied circle-jerk of ever-increasing paranoia, but it helps.

I should clarify something else too. The Encyclopedia is not a racist hate site, although anyone who came here looking for endless, inflammatory booga-booga scaremongering about one particular minority religious group certainly wouldn't be disappointed.

The Encyclopedia is more of a voluntary police action aimed at a) defining our own fucknut, rah-rah pom-pom waving for one-sided violence as the outermost boundary of acceptable opinion and b) sending great snarling packs of feral right wing bigots snapping at the heels of those with the temerity to differ.

Nonetheless, it is far easier to portray these attacks on our race-fixated commentariat as the effete affectations of politically correct liberal woofters than it is to directly address the issue of our obvious witch hunting bastardry, so let us slyly gloss over the Samosa's entirely accurate accusations of McCarthyism.

So, in summary, Penny Laurie is - like most with the effrontery to criticise our monomaniacal zeal for partisan condemnation - very, very posh. Regular readers will know that the Encyclopedia is published straight from the Stygian blackness of our proletarian coal mine, and its hard-grafting, rough-handed writers do not take well to being ticked off by some tofu munching, proto-lesbian Jemima.

Let us then return to the good work of sniffing out vaguely suspicious opinion for political gain. We can do so secure in the knowledge that our relentless war upon reason, truth and basic human decency is the pinnacle of working class activism, rather than simply a bunch of illiberal, whining ex-Trots camouflaging their rocket propelled rightwards trajectory with a load of mealy mouthed and dishonest waffle about fascism.

Source: Never Mind The Legitimate Criticism - Here's The Bullshit, Marcus at Harry's Place.